Prerogative Court of Canterbury and related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers

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Prerogative Court of Canterbury and related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers

1384-1858

https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C12122

This series contains the vast majority of registered wills proved before the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and other jurisdictions that exercised probate jurisdiction in the place of the Court, the most important of which was the Court for Probate of Wills and Granting of Administrations which exercised sole probate jurisdiction in England and Wales from 1653 to 1659. The earliest registers in the series were constituted at a latter date and contain the texts of wills proved before the archbishop of Canterbury or his officials before the Prerogative Court of Canterbury came into existence. These registers also contain extraneous membranes from the main archiepiscopal registers. Sentences in causes heard by the Prerogative Court of Canterbury and related jurisdictions, if registered, were also registered in this series until some time in the latter part of the eighteenth century. English is the predominant language for the documents in this series. The usage of Latin (and to a lesser extent Norman French) quickly declined after the early wills. By the sixteenth century Latin was no longer being used. However the probate clauses at the end of each will remained in Latin up to 1733, apart from a short period in the seventeenth century. There are also wills in many other languages, especially Dutch, right up to the end of the series in 1858. However for these wills there should be an English translation next to the foreign original.

2263 volume(s)

eng, Latn

National Archives (Great Britain)

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 11677061

Related Entities

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Stanhope, Hester, Lady, 1776-1839

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6w2000k (person)

Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope (12 March 1776 – 23 June 1839) was the eldest child of Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope. In August 1803, she moved into the home of her uncle, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, to manage his household and act as his hostess and later secretary. In February 1810, Stanhope left England and travelled to through Greece, Turkey, and the Middle East. Stanhope came into possession of a medieval Italian manuscript copied from the records of a monastery somewhere in S...